Sometimes When I Sleep

Helen Salsbury

Description

For Harriet, Eden university is a chance to escape the shadows of a family tragedy and reinvent herself, even though she doesn't know exactly who she is or where she belongs. She's grown up hiding from curious eyes, and seeking refuge in the music of Dark Island, who appear to be the only ones who have words for her hidden traumas. She's escaped into hockey and being an A* student, found companionship and adventure in role-playing games, but somehow she's never been able to run far enough to avoid the night-time terrors which haunt her. Spurred by a promise from Dark Island that she's leaving the shadows, Harriet is convinced that university will be the place where all this changes. And yet, finding where she belongs is not easy. Hockey is dominated by the arrogant Mark Collier, and relationships prove as difficult here as at home.As the structures which have kept Harriet safe start to crumble, she is drawn somewhat against her will towards the cold, mysterious and compelling Iquis. It's a tumultuous relationship - full of conflict and misunderstandings. And yet, as Harriet starts to recognise a matching brokenness in Iquis, she becomes convinced that their paths are entwined, and that only by rescuing Iquis from what binds her can she, Harriet, ever find freedom from the chains of her own past. But as the girls' journeys take them across the night-time landscapes of Cumbria, and then deeper into the frozen north, the questions arise: how much of what the girls fear comes from inside and how much from outside, and what is the price of redemption?

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 08 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800466593
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Helen Salsbury is a published short story writer, spoken word performer and community journalist, who has been longlisted for the Mslexia novel competition and shortlisted for the Impress Prize for New Writers. She’s the founder of environmental writing project Pens of the Earth and a director of the Portsmouth Writers Hub.

www.helensalsbury.com




Copyright © 2021 Helen Salsbury

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Matador
9 Priory Business Park,
Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,
Leicestershire. LE8 0RX
Tel: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador
Twitter: @matadorbooks

ISBN 9781800466593

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

For my sisters


Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two

Acknowledgements



Once

“ Once there was a princess,
dreamed from a drop of blood,
with skin white as snow,
with hair black as jet;
with her future carved in stone. ”

From the album Faerie Gothic,
by Dark Island


One
Cumbria, 2004
‘The University of Eden,’ Harriet murmurs. Despite the tension in the car, the post-fight chasm between her and Dad, she has to say it out loud. Their car has been crawling over the vast shoulders of the Pennines for what’s felt like hours, gradually climbing, gradually descending, and then finally this last turn in the road and there it is, nestled deep in the Eden Valley, all walls and buildings and green grass and well-trodden paths. ‘Eden University.’
The taste of apples and the slither of serpents and the promise of something different, something better, something brighter. Harriet fights her seatbelt to crane forward; last time she’d only been a visitor, here for an interview. This time she belongs.
The road is narrow, twisting, and Dad has been hunched forward over the steering wheel for pretty much the entire journey: arms tense, shoulders bulked like a bull’s.
She’s kept a wary eye on him, unable to keep out of his way like she normally would after one of their fights. Now, she senses him turn his head briefly to look at her.
‘You chose it for the name?’ he says.
‘No, I didn’t! You know that.’ She drums her trainers against the car floor, rakes a hand through her short hair.
It’s not easy to let the anger, the resentment go. Never is.
She leans forwards, glares through the windscreen. In the distance, the sunlight is striking the white tops of Eden’s residential halls creating a clean brilliance. And that lightens her mood.
There are no shadows there. It’s a reinforcement of the Dark Island lyrics she’d heard for the first time this morning. “ You’re leaving the shadows. ” That’s what Medea had sung, that’s what she keeps replaying in her head.
I’m leaving the shadows! She hugs the promise to herself, turning her head away to look through the side window so that Dad won’t spot what she’s thinking.
The free DVD of Dark Island’s new song, “Bleeding for Strangers”, had arrived in the post this morning, attached to the front of Harriet’s goth mag. The timing was immaculate! Even though they were meant to be leaving straight after breakfast, Harriet hadn’t been able to resist sneaking away to play it, using the excuse of ordering more library books for Mum to justify unpacking her laptop; only Dad had caught her watching it and been furious, their row so much more menacing for being conducted at low volume so that it didn’t disturb Mum.
Harriet can still hear the words he’d snarled at her, can still hear the names he’d used for Dark Island. He’d called them “Ghouls”. He’d called Medea a “grief harpy”.
He’d not even tried to understand, even though she’d wanted him to; really, really wanted him to.
Dad clears his throat. ‘You chose Eden for Dr Drake then?’
This is safe ground.
‘Absolutely,’ Harriet says. She hesitates, but the desire to get past their argument is strong. After all, how many chances has she got left to speak to him? She’d been looking forward to this journey, to having him to herself for once. ‘She excites me every bit as much as she terrifies me.’
‘Hmm.’ It’s a half laugh, encouraging.
‘The way she grilled me at the interview,’ she says, ‘making it clear she’s after brilliance, passion. She’ll make me the best I can be. She’ll teach me to build bridges.’
Then you’ll be proud of me.
Again Dad clears his throat, an awkward sound. His fingers are clenched round the wheel, knuckles white. This journey can’t be easy for him.
A sudden tightness in her chest, like someone has stuck her in a corset and pulled tight. She exhales rather noisily.
‘You didn’t have to choose civil engineering just because that’s what I do,’ Dad blurts. ‘You’re allowed to make your own choices.’
Harriet widens her eyes. Dad doesn’t really do analysing stuff or heart-to-hearts.
‘It’s what I want,’ she says.
And yet, she knows it’s more complicated than that. It’s what Stephen would have done. But to tell him this would bring them too close to what she fears is unsaid in every fight they have, the reason why they don’t bounce back, the reason why no argument ever resolves things.
Dad and Stephen used to have epic rows. But there was never this awkward terrain of afterwards to negotiate, this smouldering half-life of anger, resentment, bitterness. Their rows always cleared the air, nothing was left unhurled, they’d emerge from their titanic clashes as bouncy as ever.
Bouncy. It’s a funny word. Not one she’d use for Dad these days.
She looks out of the window into the distance, where the sharp peaks of the Lake District flirt with the blue sky. They are far less serious than the dour humps of the Pennines. It’s another reminder that not everything has to be sullen-shouldered, hunched.
She immediately wants to visit them, and longs for her bike which just wouldn’t fit into the car. She’ll get it at Christmas when she goes home, bring it back on the train.
Dad thinks it will be easier for Mum to cope if Harriet doesn’t keep coming and going, and Harriet hasn’t argued with his conclusion, wasn’t even sure she wanted to. She bites her lip, frowns. Will Mum be okay?
Surprisingly, what hits her is anger, rather than the usual guilt.
She clenches her fists and stares hard at the mountains until she’s found a way to push it under, make like she never felt it. Impossible to feel anger with Mum, she’d have to be a monster to do that. And she’s not. Doesn’t want to be. Is intent on proving that she isn’t.
She watches the mountains until the descent into the valley blocks them from view.
Nearly there! She rubs her palms on her jeans to dry them. She’s nervous, inevitable perhaps, but it’s all going to be okay.
I’m going to be a new person here. Not “the sister of the boy who—”
No. Not that. Not even close .
There’s no one here from Harriet’s school, no one here from her hockey team. It’s the way she chose it. She’s on her own, and she can make this hers. She can be whoever she wants to be.
Dad steers the car through the entrance to the walled campus and along its “fifteen miles an hour” roads, turns into a space in the car park, kills the ignition.
He stays sitting there, while the engine ticks. He looks tired, edgy, and there’s a crease of frown just above his eyes. His hands are still locked to the steering wheel.
Finally, he lifts one hand. ‘This is it. Genesis Hall.’ He gestures at the square white building, with its splodge of red climbing plant. ‘I’ll start getting the boxes out while you pick up your room key.’
*
Every step is new; every face is new. Harriet does a fair bit of nervous smiling and saying, ‘Hi’. Everyone’s busy, either laden or returning empty-handed, like this group clattering down the stairs and past where the two of them are standing, checking Harriet’s instructions on where to go.
‘Top floor,’ Dad says. ‘Wouldn’t you just know!’
Harriet hoists her hockey bag, with its clacking sticks, more securely onto her shoulder and shifts her grip on the huge box she is holding.
The stairs are currently clear; she gets a sudden impulse, acts on